Sculpture - Max Ax

A Closer Listen

What’s the last physical release that you were excited about ~ not only because you enjoyed the music, but because you wanted to cherish the object and show it off to your friends?  In a comeback year for exquisite packaging, Sculpture‘s Max Ax may be the pièce de résistance.  The audiovisual duo of Dan Hayhurst and Reuben Sutherland has already been responsible for some of the most beautiful vinyl of all time, as well as some of the most beguiling videos, and the new album doubles the fun: a pair of zoetrope 10″ records whose images can be unlocked using a Smartphone.  (For an example of what this feature looks like, see the Paris exhibition video The Zoetropic Gallery.)

The music is just as fun.  Max Ax sounds like an amalgamation of early 21st century machines, from handheld video games and dial-up to bank machines and multi-flavor soda dispensers.  The music seems abstract at first, but begins to make internal sense.  As the record spins, wild associations may begin to tumble: anime, foam makers, popcorn poppers, laser guns.  The title track and lead single jumps right into the fray, with a synthetic layer, a percussive layer and even an ambient layer: a multi-colored cake that one simply must eat, if only to know how it tastes.

Sculpture has worked hard over the years to develop a signature sound, an achievement that eludes many artists for their entire careers.  This sound includes a wide use of the stereo field, both left and right and front to back; an eagerness to experiment with new forms; and the sense that something in the circuits has gone playfully awry.  Pair this with surprising stops and starts, as in “Blood Sharpie,” crazy juxtapositions (the out-of control drums against the steady synths in “REPO”) and a love for the wide breadth of electronic sound, and one is almost there.  The cherry on the top (we are still thinking about dessert) is that instead of being elusive or inaccessible, the music it draws the listener into the mystery.  Hearing “Your Security Code,” one begins to wonder if the three-digit code on the back of one’s credit card has a real soundtrack: a series of pings and beeps, unique to the interaction of its numbers with those on the front of the card, that repeats each time it is used.  If it didn’t, it does now.

After all this playful pollination, “Cross Processor” comes as a surprise ~ perhaps not to Sculpture fans, but to first-time listeners.  The piece has a steady beat, atop which ride a series of melodic snippets, sinking and surfacing like children on a calliope.  Not only could this be a club hit, but for all its nostalgic facets, it’s also futuristic in a manner that sci-fi shows have yet to capture: the sound of something familiar yet new, a galaxy of unexplored sound.

And of course we have to talk about the cover, which looks like it may also be an actual object on Dan or Reuben’s coffee table.  (If there is only one, who gets to take it home?)  The object looks a bit like a Rubikstein monster, a melding of circuits and switches and knobs and buttons and wires and small screens, something that might be able to make its own music, seemingly random yet avidly intentional, like Sculpture. There’s no telling its size, but if it’s portable, it’s easily the Best Toy Ever.

“Chromophoria” is another well-chosen title, referring to a misalignment of color perception (not to be confused with chromophobia or heterochromia).  In classic experiments, a person was told to close one eye and look at an image, then at a blank page, where one might see another color, a trick of the eye.  Similar illusions are projected by Sculpture’s music and their zoetropes.  What looks or sounds like one thing may really be another; the perceptive wall is shattered.  After one has seen the images, the mind projects them in association with the music, even when the eyes are closed.  In like manner, the track toys with aural hallucinations: the opening keys imitate a piano, while electronic birds flit about the studio.  The left and right speakers imitate the viewpoint of the left and right eyes; the senses try to reconcile what they are hearing.

To understand the unique niche that Sculpture occupies, one must own their records.  But to enjoy them, one need only listen to their music.  We invite our readers to do both.  (Richard Allen)

Purchase via Psyché Tropes and LTR Records